CHINA
CH PNA
decorative agents, it is scarcely possible to speak too highly. This is the beautiful enamel found on many of the “ Imperial Porcelains”’ (Yu-chz, or Kuan-yao) of the best periods of the present dynasty, where it completely covers whatever portions of the surface are not occupied by floral designs in brilliant colours —green, yellow, blue, purple, black, and white. In the whole range of keramic chefs-d’@uvre there are not to be found any finer examples of decoration in vitrifiable enamels. But the choicest and most charm- ing conception worked out by the aid of the Tsao- hung red is of the type shown in a Hsuan-té censer of H’siang’s Illustrated Catalogue, concerning which the author says that “the upper two-thirds of the body and the handles are covered with a deep red glaze of rosy-dawn tint, the lower part enamelled white, pure as driven snow, the two colours mingling in a curved line dazzling the eyes.’ Similar pieces, though apparently few and far between, were manu- factured by the Kang-hst, Yung-ching, and Chien-lung experts. They are, indeed, improvements upon H’siang’s specimen, for the white surface, instead of being separated from the red simply by a curved line, is covered with wave-pattern — engraved in the pdte with such delicacy that the superincumbent glaze is as smooth as velvet — the crests of the waves curling up into the brilliant red above. It is probable that in H’siang’s censer the red was painted directly on the pate, a method that would have added largely to its depth and brilliancy. But the Tseng reproductions of this fine type gain in artistic effect what they lose in grandeur of tone.
The second red among those applied to porcelain already stoved, is the Yen-chi-hung, or “ Rouge Red.”
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